0 - 100 kph in 1s, can it be done?
 

A fellow student asked me today if I had any experience in terms of RC cars.
I said I did and was in for a shock.
His brother and a group of people form another university seemingly started a project to build a RC car that can do a 0-100kph(~60mph) sprint in 1 second.
They have a good set of machines (CNC and so on) and a budget of a few thousand euros.

Do you guys have any ideas/prognosis if it can be done and maybe even some ideas on the how part?

There seem to be no limitations what so ever. Just the acceleration and it has to be radiocontroled.
Not sure that strapping a big rocket to a set of wheels and ignite it via remote control counts though:lol:

I'm thinking BL (need the high torque right from the start I would imagine), HV, 4WD?
Weight put in the front, aerodynamic body that generates downforce in the front? rear? everywhere? Fans in the underbody of the car like they did in F1 a long time ago?
Ultra fast servo with extremely precise gyro to compensate any steering influences, because in that short time, there is no way a human could react quick and precise enough while the car is accelerating as hard as it is needed to.

Let your mind roam freely, I think at this point there are no bad ideas.
Or is this old news and has been done ages ago?

Check out rc dragsters...

A drag rail can do it, SunnyHouTX is into drag racing and posted this slip a while ago
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/h...40131Small.jpg
total time 1.404 seconds - .441 seconds reaction time = 0-89.7mph (144.4kph) in .963 seconds of acceleration time. I think it requires a prepared drag strip to do it though and I'm not sure if that matters to you or not.

RC dragster do it, which are 1/10 scale vehicles on prepared tracks and perfect setup. It's not something you can achieve overnite.

And IIRC, that 0.441 reaction time was due to some tree delay or something. His actual reaction time was less than that. His speed of 88mph is 141km/h, and he did that in ~1 sec, so to get to "only" 100km/h (62.1mph), it should take around 700ms assuming the acceleration is linear (probably not).

Brian, near linear is possible with the right motor and ESC settings. Tire slippage, Ballooning, tire compound, and wear down the track should also be taking into consideration.